Firefighting Robot Sports 3D Thermal Imaging

Robots can come in pretty handy to help us humans out, especially when we are in a tight spot. Firefighters will be able to relate on how robots in different situations are able to enter dangerous zones where humans cannot, in order to search for possible survivors. Well, this particular firefighting robot that you see hail from UCSD is set to be the latest darling among firefighters, if you will. Called the FFR which is short for “firefighting robot,” it might be more technically viable to call it the FLR (fire locating robot) instead.

The robot will make use of a stereo camera and a thermal camera in order to generate 3D pointclouds with thermal overlays, so that it is capable of generating maps autonomously to depict the relevant hot spots and humans, never mind that the entire area is blanketed by smoke. Sensor hardware on board the robots are simple in nature, so hopefully, the firefighting robot will be economically viable for different firefighting departments across the globe when it is manufactured on a mass scale.